Friday, July 24, 2009

Launched in November 2008, the Bruichladdich Resurrection Dram is sure to stand out on your whisky shelf. Do not stare directly at the bottle (or canister) for more than two seconds.

Called the "resurrection dram" because it is made up of the first spirit produced after re-opening under new ownership in 2001, this is a limited release of 24,000 bottles and is a slightly peatier version of typical Bruichladdich (10ppm).

The distillery notes say "In 2001 when BDC started distilling Bruichladdich at first the peated malt BDC could secure was 10ppm which BDC distilled for part of 2001 until it could procure the traditional specification of 3 to 5 ppm for Bruichladdich. This release has been selected 100% from the 10ppm distillation and therefore makes this quite a rare bottling , and may never be repeated as most of the 2001 vintage has been or is being used in the multi vintage bottlings (3D series , Infinity , Rocks , Waves and Peat)"Good responses to this bottling from the always reliable Whisky Notes can be found HERE. Another report from the over-prolific Ralfy HERE. If you can watch more than 3 of his Whisky Review videos and not feel, well ralfy, then I will send you a bottle of whisky. Seriously! Although the muck up at Loch Fyne is absolutely classic, my fave is the one at Glen Gyle where poor Pete Currie has to patiently put up with this self-important whisky nerd with a tripod in his face. Watch for the eye-roll in Part 2, "So, so we'll just carry on..." Amazing.

At least the guy has links on his site... to himself. (*note- in the months following this post, Ralfy added external links. An extensive and valuable list, but I can't shake the feeling that he may have missed one...)

For more distillery info and for all Bruichladdich had on the Malt Mission, click HERE.

Tasted with AW and AF.

TASTING NOTES:

Fresh berries, strawberry cream tarts, honey on toast, cake mix. Lightly fudgy and sweet, with milk chocolate and a floral (violet-y) peat. More suggestion of fruits, perhaps tropical, or dried ginger and apricot with a chlorinated whiff of smoke.

Let is get some air before jumping in to your glass and you will be rewarded. It has to be said that first impressions were not great (baby sick, grape skins, wet dog) but after time we all were throwing out “this is like a lollipop”, “immensely fruity”, and "wonderful to nose”. A complex dram for such a young age (7 years). The fruitier, more typical (whatever that means with a distillery that has releases 40 bottlings per annum) Bruichladdich aromas were there, just buried under an old-school smoke, similar to Brora, that added a farmy element to be loved by some and loathed by others. Just like the stark bottling design.

6 comments:

Boo! Ralfy is excellent and great fun. If only more shared his enthusiasm. Nobody's perfect and getting a few facts wrong off the cuff isn't a huge crime in my book when he's doing so much to encourage people to try whisky.